Monday, May 23, 2011

With school ending I thought I would share the following to help with school prep over hte summer. I made these in the winter time but they are perfect all year.

Life gets busy as we all know and I was feeling like I wasn't giving my children enough. That is the only way I can describe it as...just not enough. In particular the educational practice they need and in the case of my children, want. I knew there was an easier and more efficient way and in 1 hour for my three younger children I came up with these:

Preschoolers:
Practicing counting 1-10 and patterns. Also by putting the beads on the pipe cleaners-fine motor skills.

Upper case and lower case puzzles. I also have him practice the sounds when he is doing this activity.

Name Practice. He loves putting the magnetic letters in order and then practicing writing his name. Okay okay not totally true he loves putting the letters in the correct order and singing the little song I taught him to practice his name. He could do without needing to practice writing it!

Fine Motor Skills by taking pop poms from one container to the other.

Kindergarteners:

Reading and words, words, words! Practice, Practice, Practice!!!

She absolutely loves these we practice counting and patterns with these and they are great for fine motor skills as well.

Practicing words again and this time she is writing them too!

Yes these are rose petals and as you know my girl is a girly girl and lets be honest what better way to pracice counting to 1-100 and learning all the numbers in between than by using rose petals...maybe chocolate!

First Graders:
He loves to pracitce making words and writing them out. We also use them to practice his word wall words(not pictured)

Time to learn time and he loves that he can check it himself when I am busy making dinner!

Show me the money, another concept they work on in first grade and he loves this too!

This is for him and I to do together and he loves to play these fun games while learning his addition and subtraction!

These little activity bags have done a number of things for me. 1. If you are going to a meeting or doctors they can grab a bag or two 2. It has given them something to do while I make dinner, that I have chosen but they get to choose too. 3. I feel like I am giving them more of an opportunity to learn and have fun at the same time!

We have a summer birthday boy(we actually have 2)and today is the day we are going to bring his treat to his class. Since I was relaxing all weekend and quite honestly who wants to bake in 85 degree weather and this idea is the cutest for a summer birthday and no bake.

It is a pool with a child floating in a inner tube or is it?

What you need:
*shortcakes(you find them at the store near the strawberries)

*vanilla pudding or frosting mixed with blue food coloring(or blue moon icecream which wouldn't work for the class)

*sour patch kids

*gummi life savers

Put a spoonful of frosting in the middle of the shortcake.
Pull sour patch kid through center of life saver and place into the middle of the "pool" Done in no time I made 24 in roughly 5 minutes with the help of the kids!!!!

Thursday, May 12, 2011

I am sitting here on my couch with my feet up taking a much needed break and realized I would not be getting back to my sweet blog for a couple of weeks. I wish I took a picture to share but sitting on the floor right next to me is 20 paint cans oh yes you read that right 20 and over the next couple of weeks I can imagine that amount will decrease and increase as paint is used up and more paint is needed. Lets just say I will be painting and painting and painting some more and then while paint is drying I will be decluttering and decluttering and decluttering. So needless to say it is times like this the blogging will cease and then I will be back with some fun projects done and whole slew of posts to follow...now I wish I would have taken before pictures since I have been painging for 2 days already!

Monday, May 9, 2011

Happy Mothers Day to all the great mothers, trying to be mothers, someday will be mothers and all motherly figures in my life. What wonderful examples of mothers you are to me.

MY husband and children were wonderful to me and as traditions go I plan nothing that day NOTHING they take care of it all. Which for me is the best gift! They made me breakfast not in bed. I prefer it that way, because they do something else I love they make the table beautiful just for me with tableclothe and flowers..it is gorgeous every year and I love it!!! My son made me eggs to order and it makes me a proud mommy to watch him do something I taught him. As for gift giving goes the breakfast and sleeping in would have been enough, we have a tradition that we take the children shopping and they pick out things that they like to do with us for Mothers and Fathers Day so I received a movie, crafts supplies and a cookbook and this is what I spent the rest of my day doing crafting, deciding on a recipe or too to make together and a movie will be watched in the near future!!!

I am very fortunate to have wonderful friends who when I came down with the flu made these for the children at church to give to their mom's for Mothers Day. I think they turned out soooo cute! Thank you Erica and Megan!

These are so versitile and can be made for any event by changing the color of sprinkles and ribbon.

My children made these as well. After they were finished I wanted to change the wording but they are done and so it stays. To make these bags you fill a clear bag with smarties and dum dums fold the top of the bag over and staple it shut. Add the bag topper using double sided tape.

To make the bag topper I printed out the saying on the computer using word and cut it out and then mounted it to black card stock(I cut the card stock the exact width of the bag and then folded it into half) with double sided tape. I added the ribbon to the bottom of the saying with double sided tape folded in half. I adhered the whole thing to the top of the bag using you guessed it double sided tape.